Jeff and Geena

Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum at the Academy Awards in 1990.

I always want to say to people who want to be rich and famous: 'try being rich first'. See if that doesn't cover most of it. There's not much downside to being rich, other than paying taxes and having your relatives ask you for money. But when you become famous, you end up with a 24-hour job.  - Bill Murray

Fame is a funny thing.  We see people on television or on the big screen and somehow we believe that we know them.  I completely agree with Bill Murray.  I have no problem with people who just want to be rich.  I would love to be rich.  Who wouldn't?  But I'm very suspicious of someone who just wants to be famous.  It's just not a healthy desire.  If you want to be the best in your field and that may result in fame, fine, but if your end game is just to be famous, I think you need to have your head examined.

When you live or work around famous people, as I occasionally have, you realize that they don't "glow" or necessarily stand out in a crowd.  My theory is that people who really don't want to be recognized generally aren't.  I've had famous people on some of my flights, walked by them in the airport or seen them out and about in Los Angeles or New York.  If they're dressed normally and minding their own business, they're not going to be recognized or bothered that much.  Dress and act normal, keep walking and don't make eye contact, and it's amazing how little attention you attract.

If you're strutting around in outlandish outfits, wearing shades inside a restaurant or airplane, and have four bodyguards shadowing your every move, well, you're probably going to attract a little attention, but then that's what you really wanted, isn't it? 

As someone who has been a lifelong "observer" of human behavior, I think being famous would be the worst curse in the world.  This is particularly true of actors who literally make their living trying to observe and portray other people.

Fame also creates an odd familiarity.  Just because we see someone every week on television or a movie screen, we think somehow we know them.  We project how they would actually be in real life. I must admit I've done this.

"Yeah, that Tom Hanks seems like a nice guy.  Russell Crowe though, big time d-bag."

That's the impression each of those actors gives off, but I have no idea if that's reality.

When I was first dating my wife, she shared a rental with a couple of her friends in a small house in the Beachwood Canyon area of Los Angeles.  The homes at the bottom of the hill were often reasonably priced, and then as you moved up the hill or into the canyon, the real estate values skyrocketed.  But it was a livable area conveniently located between Hollywood and the film and TV studios over the hill in Burbank.  We would bump into famous people at the cute, pricey, little neighborhood grocery store - the Beachwood Market.  We would see famous people when we ate breakfast at the local cafe.  No big deal.  Just part of life living in Beachwood Canyon.

Drama queen Lindsay Lohan and her then partner Samantha Ronson exiting the Beachwood Market.

But one famous couple caught our eye.  Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis were at the peak of their careers in the late 1980's, and were one of the hottest couples in Hollywood.  They must have lived in Beachwood or the surrounding area, because we kept seeing them around town: at the movies, in a restaurant or in the grocery store.

The Village Coffee Shop in Beachwood Canyon

And however gorgeous they may have looked on the big screen or in People magazine; they looked more beautiful and adorable in person.  They were both statuesque.  Some actors lie about their height to give the illusion they're much taller than they actually are (Ahnold, cough, cough, Stallone, cough, cough, Gibson).  Jeff and Geena were so tall that they probably lied by claiming they were shorter than they actually were.

We perceived them to be smart and clever.  And they were, of course, both gorgeous.  Did I mention they were gorgeous?  When we'd spy them around town, they just looked so cute together.  They were always touching each other, whispering in each other's ears and smiling.  My wife, in particular, loved it every time we saw them.  She thought they were just so cute.  I had to admit they were a handsome couple.

The historic Cinerama Dome in Hollywood where we saw The Untouchables with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.

Sometimes you'll have a group of couples who are your friends and there is a couple or two who just seem perfect together - you know they'll be together forever - and others make you wonder "what in the hell were they thinking?"  When you hear news of the former breaking up, your first reaction is "oh, that's too bad, they were a cute couple."  When the latter finally breaks up, you think "thank goodness, how in the heck did they last that long?"

Jeff and Geena were magic.  You just had to root for them.  Young, talented and beautiful - the toast of the town.

So when word came out that they had finally broken up as a couple - which is just about inevitable in Hollywood - Cindy took it like two of her best friends had broken up, not just two random people we'd never met.  They were Jeff and Geena.  They were perfect together.  Remember the time we saw The Untouchables with them at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood?  We had breakfast together at the Village Coffee Shop, shared some late night cherry pie at House of Pies.

I wonder if they'd just been two prominent people in another profession, something normal without the fame and constant travel, would they have made it?

Time marched on, my wife and I got married and eventually found a home in Sonoma County - 50 miles north of San Francisco.  One Fall day in 1993 I headed out with our pup to the dog park and spotted a bunch of helicopters flying overhead.  Several of them, all flying quite low.  You usually only see helicopters in Sonoma County when there's a large wildfire.  I felt like Ray Liotta in the end of Goodfellas.  What in the hell was going on?

Turns out Geena Davis just couldn't stay away from us.  She was getting married that weekend to the action film director Renny Harlin at the Kunde winery in nearby Kenwood.  Our invitation must have been lost in the mail.  News reports said the wedding cost them close to a million dollars, an amount believed to be the most ever spent on a wedding in Sonoma County, up to that time.  Money didn't buy happiness.  They were inevitably divorced in 1998. 

Davis has now been married four times.  Do you think she's nuts?  A drama queen?  Maybe, but I don't think so.  I think it's just very tough to be in a relationship with someone that famous.  Goldblum never married again.

My wife and I will just remember them as Jeff and Geena.  The cutest couple in Beachwood Canyon.